


Another Bad Night

by justtracy



Category: New Blood (TV)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Male Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-19
Updated: 2016-07-19
Packaged: 2018-07-25 09:44:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7527874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justtracy/pseuds/justtracy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once again Stefan gets hurt, Arrash gets worried.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Another Bad Night

**Author's Note:**

> Second fanfic ever. This story came to me in the night and I had to write it down the next morning. Once again sorry for any errors. This story was also posted on my livejournal and tumblr.

New Blood. Another Bad Night.

Arrash is sitting in their new apartment, it's almost dark and Arrash can't help but wonder where Stefan is. Just then the door opens and Stefan stumbles in. To say he looks worse for wear is an understatement. His clothes are dishevelled and covered in dirt and his face, well, that's covered in cuts and blood.

Arrash quickly stands up and heads towards Stefan. "What the hell happened?", he demands trying not to sound too worried even though he definitely is. "Got mugged", Stefan replies as he tries to straighten his clothing.

"What?", is all Arrash can say as he leads Stefan to the sofa and sits him down. Arrash rushes to the kitchen where he picks up a cloth and runs under the tap. He also grabs a bag of frozen peas from the freezer, those bruises will need something cold on them. Arrash heads back to the sofa where Stefan is sitting looking quite pitiful – he attempts to remove his jacket but gives up half way through when he realises the energy it would take. Arrash sits on the coffee table opposite Stefan. He put his hand under Stefan's chin and gently angles his face towards him. "Jesus", he says quietly as he instinctively starts to clean Stefan's cuts as gently as possible. Stefan flinches. Arrash softy says "Sorry".

The odd quietness is broken when Arrash says "We should call the police". Stefan gestures towards Arrash, "You're the police", he states.

"Okay. Then tell me what happened", Arrash says as he places the bag of peas on Stefan's head and continues to clean the multiple cuts on his face. Whoever did this really meant it. Arrash pauses to look at how pitiful Stefan looks. If he didn't look so broken it would almost be funny. It isn't.

Stefan relays the details of what happened. The gist being that three guys Stefan didn't recognise jumped him a few streets way, stole his phone and money and beat the shit out of him.

"Crap. My credit cards", Stefan says.

"Don't worry about that. We'll sort it out later", Arrash replies.

"Even after they took my stuff, they punched me and kicked me when I was down. Bastards", Stefan adds.

"What do you mean? They kicked you? All three of them?", Arrash asks. Suddenly feeling like he would like to beat the shit out of the three guys himself. Stefan just nods defeatedly. "Where?", Arrash adds. "I told you, three streets away. Colny Road", Stefan replies.

Arrash sighs and rolls his eyes, sometimes it's like talking to a three year old. "No", he says, "Where on you? Where did they kick you?".

"Oh, um..well..", Stefan begins as he points to himself, his hand hovers over a couple of places before he decides to just gesture to his whole body. "Everywhere", he states.

"Can you show me?", Arrash asks and he helps Stefan to remove his jacket – which was only half on due to Stefan's earlier aborted attempt to remove it himself. Stefan gingerly stands up and slowly lifts up his shirt. There are black and blue marks everywhere – some even in the shape of a foot print. Hell, you can almost see the make of the shoe in some of them.

"Jesus. Those bastards", Arrash says. Stefan, half smiles and nods. "Yep", he states. "Bastards".

"We need to get you to hospital. I'm calling an ambulance", Arrash says as he stands up. Stefan shakes his head, "Don't need to, I'm fine", he says as he sits back down again. Slowly. Trying to hide the pain in his face as he does so.

"Bloody hell, Stefan!", Arrash almost shouts, Stefan almost flinches. "You are not fine!", he adds in a slightly calmer tone. "They could have killed you", he says quietly.

Stefan sighs, "I don't need the hospital. You've cleaned me up. I just need to put some ice on these bruises and a nice warm bath. And I'll be right as rain. Definitely. I'll be fine", he says, nodding.

What is is with nice warm baths, Arrash wonders. It was something his mother used to say when he was a kid. "Have a nice warm bath and it'll be better in the morning". In fairness to his mother, he usually was better in the morning but that was when he'd fallen over and grazed his knee. Not this. Stefan could have internal bleeding. Broken ribs. Head trauma. All kinds of horrible things were going through Arrash's mind.

Arrash sat back down on the coffee table and faced Stefan again. "Stefan, come on. You need to see a doctor. I'm serious", Arrash said. He then sighed defeatedly and added "Leila will probably be there".

Stefan smiled. "Nice try, Rash", he said. "I'm still not going".

Arrash stands up and waves his arms dramatically. "But – you – fine!", he finally said. "You go and have your warm bath or whatever but if you still look as bad as this afterwards I'm calling an ambulance and you're going whether you like it or not!".

"Deal", Stefan said and smiled smugly like he'd just won one of their bickering contests. He then got up and walked gingerly to the bathroom. "You need some help?", Arrash called after him. "I'm not a child, Rash, I can run my own bath", Stefan called back.

Arrash sat back down, on the sofa this time. It was pitch black outside by now. Arrash wondered how Stefan always managed to get himself into these situations. Arrash shook that throught away. Nope, it wasn't Stefan's fault this time. Unless it was. Was this related to some case Stefan was working on. Arrash wasn't even gonna ask, Stefan wouldn't tell him anyway. "Can't tell you" would be his answer.

Arrash noticed that ten minutes had passed and he hadn't heard a sound from the bathroom. Internal bleeding. Head trauma. Those thoughts entered his head again and he walked towards the bathroom door. He knocked gently "Stef?", he said. No answer. Arrash shook his head, he knew he should have called an ambulance. He tried the door handle but but it was locked. "Stefan?!" he said louder.

"Don't worry, Rash, I'm still alive", came the response from Stefan. Finally. Arrash wondered if he didn't answer immediately on purpose. Just to worry him.

"That's not funny", he called through the door. "It's a little bit funny", Stefan replied.

"It's not"

"Is"

Arrash sighed and walked away from the door. "Not", he said quietly to himself as he sat down.

A couple of minutes later Stefan walked out of the bathroom wearing his boxers. Arrash will admit that he did look slightly better but even a nice warm bath wouldn't wash away the cuts and bruises. He even had bruises on his legs. They kicks his legs too. And he had a shoe print on his face that Arrash didn't notice before. Stefan wasn't exaggerating when he said they'd kicked him everywhere. They were bastards.

"See, good as new", Stefan said holding his arms out. "Ow", he added before putting his arms back down again and walking gingerly back to the sofa where he sat down next to Arrash.

A few minutes later Stefan was asleep where he sat – and he was sleeping. Arrash had already checked that he was still breathing. He even almost woke him up. Stefan mumbled a "Rash, I'm fine" in response. Arrash slowly got up and gently placed a blanket over Stefan.

You can never be too careful with head injuries Arrash told himself as he watched Stefan sleep all night. Just to be sure. Arrash was sure he'd heard somewhere that you should wake someone up every couple of hours after a head injury so Arrash did just that. Every time he did it Stefan would push his hand away and mumble something in Polish.

At about 8am Arrash starting to make some phone calls – first he called Leila and filled her in on what had happened the night before. He mainly wanted to check that he'd done the right thing not taking Stefan to the hospital. He also told her the injuries he'd sustained. Leila said she might drop by later to check him over.

The next phone call was to DS Sands, to report the attack. Mugging. Whatever.

Finally he phoned the bank to see if he could do something about those credit cards. He was just in the middle of an increasingly heated argument with the person on the phone who was telling him they couldn't cancel the cards without permission from the account holder - and Arrash using his police credentials wasn't helping. Obviously they were right, of course, but Arrash was tired, he was cranky and he wanted to sort this out so Stefan wouldn't have to – when Stefan woke up.

"Good morning", Stefan said just as Arrash was shouting "thank you for your help!" into the phone before hanging up. "Bloody banks!" he said. He then turned around and saw Stefan looking at him.

"Morning", Stefan repeated with half a smile.

Arrash exhaled deeply. "How are you feeling?", he asked. "Good", Stefan replied as he tried to stand up. He sat back down defeatedly. "Couldn't help me up, could you, mate?", he asked.

Arrash smiled and shook his head as he walked over and helped Stefan up. "Right as rain, huh?", he asked. "Yeah, maybe I need another warm bath?", was Stefan's response.

"Or alternatively we would visit that doctor?", Arrash suggested.

Stefan shook his head "Nope, still don't need it", he said as he walked slowly to the bathroom.

"Right", Arrash said quietly. "By the way, you need to call the bank later"

Arrash then sat back down on the sofa. He was absolutely shattered. A few minutes later he was asleep.

When he woke a while later, there was a blanket over him and Stefan was milling about in the kitchen. He glanced over to Arrash. "Coffee?", he asked. "Go on then", Arrash answered.

"Leila popped by earlier, just to check me over, at your request apparently", Stefan said. "She said I'm fine – which, told you, didn't I? - and that you did a good job looking after me. Thanks for that", he added.

Stefan then walked over to the sofa and sat down. He handed a coffee to Arrash.

"Thanks mate", Arrash said and drank a mouthful of coffee. "That's a good coffee", he added.

Ten minutes later both were asleep on the sofa.


End file.
